People in ancient times have always had a dream, that is to be able to fly to the sky and see what the world outside of the earth is like? And this dream, with the continuous development of human civilization, finally came true in 1957. On October 4, 1957, mankind’s first artificial satellite was successfully launched, marking the official beginning of mankind’s exploration of the universe.
Although only 63 years have passed from 1957 to 2020, the development of human space technology is very fast. In just 63 years, we have achieved a manned landing on the moon, a landing on the back of the moon, and a series of explorations on Mars. At the same time, we launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 successively in 1977. Their goal is to get out of the solar system and explore more distant stars.
After 43 years of flying, Voyager 1 is currently 21 billion kilometers away from the Earth, making it the farthest probe for human navigation. So did Voyager 1 fly out of the solar system? The answer is no. According to scientists’ observations of the solar system, including the Oort Cloud, the diameter of the solar system has reached more than one light-year. At the speed of the Voyager, it may take tens of thousands of years to fly out.
Although the solar system is also a very vast space in our eyes, it is just a grain of dust in front of the Milky Way. The Milky Way with a diameter of more than 150,000 light-years, and star systems like the solar system, are at least more than 100 billion in number. For many scientists, exploring the Milky Way is a great dream.
So is there any hope for such a great dream to come true? We all know that speed is a key factor in determining how much we can explore. In the age of the earth, we rely on the advantages of speed to quickly travel across the earth. The advantage of speed also allows us to have a comprehensive understanding of the earth. It has turned the earth into a global village and the back garden of mankind.
Visible speed determines the future of mankind. After we walked out of the earth, we saw the vast universe, and the distance of the universe is based on light years, and the corresponding basic speed is the speed of light. It can be seen from this that the speed of light can only be regarded as a very ordinary speed in the universe. Someone once asked: if humans make light-speed spacecraft, can we cross the Milky Way?
From the perspective of the solar system, the diameter is only about one light-year, and with our current spacecraft speed, it would take tens of thousands of years to fly out of the solar system. But if it is a light-speed spacecraft, it will only take about a year. It can be seen that if humans make a light-speed spacecraft, we can cross the solar system. At that time, the solar system was the back garden of human beings.
But when we put our field of vision in the entire Milky Way galaxy, the speed of light is too slow. We must know that with a diameter of more than 150,000 light-years in the Milky Way, it takes at least 150,000 years for the speed of light to travel in a straight line even once. If you want to travel across the Milky Way, it may take at least millions of years. Through these, we can see that it is impossible for a light-speed spacecraft to cross the Milky Way.
Seeing this, I believe that many of my friends will be negative about humans’ future space exploration. The reason is that outside of the existing relativity theory of mankind, the limit speed of objects is the speed of light, and matter with static mass cannot exceed the speed of light. This is the truth that Einstein’s theory of relativity tells us, and this truth has been scientifically confirmed.
If so, does that mean that human beings will always be trapped in the galaxy and will never be able to explore the mysteries of the entire galaxy? If we can’t even go out of the tiny galaxy, then how can we talk about exploring the entire universe? Therefore, when many people see this, they will feel desperate for the future of mankind. Is the speed of light really unbreakable?
We all understand a truth, that is, existence is reasonable. If there is a phenomenon of super-speed of light in the universe, it means that the speed of light is not the limit of speed. So is there any super-light phenomenon in the universe? The answer is yes, the most obvious is the expansion of the universe.
Modern scientific theory believes that the universe originated from the singularity big bang 13.8 billion years ago. The universe born after the Big Bang has been expanding rapidly, and the speed of this expansion is not constant. The farther away the galaxy is, the faster the expansion speed. After more than 15 billion light-years, the speed of the galaxy away from us will surpass. The speed of light.
Therefore, human beings have the observable universe, and there is even more vast space outside the observable universe, but because the speed of expansion exceeds the speed of light, we can’t observe it. Since the expansion speed of the universe can exceed the speed of light, it shows that the speed of light in the universe is not the limit speed.
Even if the expansion speed of the universe surpasses the speed of light, there is hope for humans to fly faster than light in the future. Of course, this superluminal flight is completely different from our ordinary speed mode. Scientists’ perception of this is a distortion of space, and the expansion of the universe itself is a distortion of space. As long as we can apply the distortion of the universe, then we can achieve super-luminous flight.
Scientists currently refer to this superluminal mode as curvature navigation or wormhole shuttle. I believe many people have heard of wormholes. It is a product of Einstein’s theory of relativity. In theory, wormholes should also exist. Everywhere in the universe. However, until now, we have not really found a wormhole in the universe, and it is impossible to prove whether a wormhole exists.
If we can prove that wormholes can exist in the future, and can find natural and stable wormholes in the universe, then the era of human interstellar civilization will truly come. At that time, the Milky Way will not be able to restrain us, and we can use the curvature of navigation or wormholes to move through the Milky Way easily. At that time, the Milky Way is the back garden of human beings.
Of course, if human beings really achieve super-luminal flight, our footsteps will naturally not stay in the Milky Way, but will move toward the vast space outside the Milky Way. As long as human technology continues to develop and advance, the stars and the sea will one day become our back garden. Perhaps one day in the future, we will even be able to step out of this universe and make the entire universe our back garden.